Milieu
by wizkid08
Summary: Love's Young Dream. Except more like a nightmare, as it's unrequited. ...What happens when you still have the body of a girl but your mind is over three hundred years old? Only two chapters so far, but more to come soon!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight series nor am I making any monetary profit from the publication of this work. Any original characters however are strictly mine and if you would like to use them in a story of your own, please contact me.

A/N: I really do not know French, so if there are mistakes-which I'm sure there are-it's due to simple ignorance of the language and I apologize in advance.

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Milieu: Chapitre Une

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My name was Heloise before the change. It meant 'sun' in my language. To be a vampire and to be named for the sun was such an ironic thing that for a while, I couldn't stand it.

I was turned when I was only fourteen. On the brink of womanhood, perhaps, according to some-and especially in the age I died in-; or according to others, like my friends and parents, a woman already full-grown, ready to be married off, have children, have a house of her own; ready to leave her old family behind…

I wasn't a plain girl. To be completely true, my looks reminded some of a doll. Small and perfect. Porcelain and adorable. When I was very young, three and four and five, strangers would come to our cottage by the river to visit my _maman_ and they would pick me up and twirl me around and play with my hair. Sometimes it seemed like they came for that reason alone.

'I could fit you in my pocket, _non?'_ the matrons would say; chucking me under my chin and smoothing their hands over my baby-soft cheeks. 'So beautiful,' they would coo, like it was an accomplishment, and _maman_ would look back, proud, satisfied that she had produced an angel-child.

My father was a _charpentier,_ or a wood-worker. He made his living by carving the most fabulous chairs and tables out of oak or maple or chestnut. Our cottage was notorious for smelling like resin and our dirt floor was forever awash in tiny splinters that _papa_ and _mon_ _frères_ would inadvertently carry in from the work-shed. You could never run around our kitchen barefoot without getting a souvenir stuck between the fleshy part of your toes, just under the divide.

_Maman_ lived in fear of visitors stopping by-always unannounced. She believed that while sunny smiles of greeting would be on their faces, in their heads would be the idea clacking around that she was a poor cleaner; that our family was untidy and her boys rebellious for trudging in _potpourri de_ _merde._

It was a lost cause to keep our home clean however.

We lived comfortably enough-before the change, I had never thought of living any other way-but land is so dirty, life as _un_ _paysan_ is so dirty that to try and keep up-or think of keeping up-is useless. Everyone I knew more or less lived like us so it was bewildering to _mon_ _frères_ and me why our family should be any different-why anyone should_ feel_ like it should be different.

To get an idea of how 'the change' as many call it was so all-encompassing, I shall say that before it happened I wasn't ever a quiet child.

Like my name, _Heloise,_ I was full of brightness and cheer. I never thought about it much-when you're young, philosophy is never a priority-, but looking back now it was obvious that people gravitated to me. I was the star they sailed around. The one with the perpetual humor and smile that could make even the more morose of the world sit up and say, 'I wish I had her joy.'

I was always running, always chatting, always getting into one scrape or another with _mon_ _frères et amis_. If I was anyplace else expect outside I would feel like I wasn't yet living. It is hard to explain, and you might not understand how if I was such a happy child anything could slow me down, but I would feel like my life hadn't even started if light or sound or the breeze didn't surround me completely. I would feel like my life was on hold. Not even halcyon, but just on hold: like _mon dieu_ had frozen everything still until the time when whomever was watching me decided I could go.

Helping _maman _with cooking and cleaning-as I _had_ to do-forever made me feel like I was somewhere else, _someone else,_ something strange. I dreaded the day that I would become a woman-when I would become old enough to care for people besides myself. Being a mother seemed like the most boring thing in the world.

But I never bemoaned being a female because with all the enthusiastic playing I did, if I fell down, or got hurt, or…mocked someone I shouldn't have, _mon__ protecteur__s_ were always there to set it right and wipe away my tears. Greater emotion seemed not to be allowed unless you were a female, so I was always happy to have this to fall back on.

Perhaps if I had been an ugly child, _maman_ would have made a bigger effort to make me seem feminine. Since my looks were feminine enough however, it was almost impossible to castigate me for having such a rambunctious attitude towards life.

I was an imp, and messes were my friends, but I never looked out of place in a dress. I could have worn a sack once filled with muddy potatoes, with blood smeared down my face and neck and arms, and bugs in my hair, and I would have looked better than most girls in the village on their most _élégante_ days.

I think back on the few years immediately after I became a vampire as 'the dark days.'

I was completely alone, completely torn away from everything I knew. For the first time in my life I was the outsider, _le monstre,_ and it saddened me to a degree I will never be able to put into words. Something so completely draining, a grief so enormous that it's like your life before, you were living in a haze, and now everything is so much clearer, so much more real, and reality without a guide or _confidante _is so hard, that it really was like that part of my timeline had gone underground. I couldn't tell anyone.

Well, anyone human, that is. _Art_ _bêtes, art animaux _of the world, I told everything to.

After I killed them.

After I had sucked all the life from them.

It is a humbling thing when your soul is so evil that every living thing recognizes it. As vampires, we are so evil, that creatures _run_ from us in fear. _They__ run from us_ because they know we are their death if we meet them. And we cannot control it.

I consoled myself with the thought that as a human, I would have killed these animals anyway.

They would have been hunted still by my village-except with arrows and stones and slings-and they would have fled from death, because that is the cycle of life.

We, as humans, stand on the top of a pyramid, and _everything_ below us is our prey.

So I attempted to comfort myself with this fact; that their rotting bodies would soothe the earth and from that, flowers and trees and grass would grow-which would nourish the bodies of their brothers, fattening them up and making their blood all the stronger for my body.

And my rationalizations sometimes worked. And sometimes they didn't.

It was forever hard to subdue the craving.

I prayed _pour__ dieu_ for death to hit me.

Then I would remember that I had already died once, and for it to strike a second time would be a lucky, lucky thing.

Why should _mon__ dieu_ concern himself with Malum Angelus, _un__ ange de mal_ anyway?

I should no longer be under His jurisdiction. I should be a citizen of _enfer_ already-in mind, if not in truth. The fires should already be licking at my body, the pitchforks from Dante's work should already be stabbing at my flesh. I should already be under a thousand different agonies, each one consecutively harder to take than the first. My body should be ravaged and eaten at by minions of the devil more foul, with souls blacker, than anything I could ever imagine in all the time I've been on this earth.

But I was still breathing.

And I was still here.

And I still could not tell anyone, because to get near anyone would mean their death.

Yes, it sounds melodramatic.

I would have rather been a coward, however, if I could go back, and let _Le Diable_ tear _ma famille_ to fleshy bits with arms and legs dismembered than have taken a stand and mouthed off.

I was so flabbergasted, you see, that anyone would dare threaten _ma__ maman._ It seemed so outrageous that anything could scare my father into speechlessness-he was such a big man. Or that anything could stop _mon_ _frères_ cold in their boots.

I've gone back once to see my cottage. It still smells like tree resin.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight series nor am I making any monetary profit from the publication of this work. Any original characters however are strictly mine and if you would like to use them in a story of your own, please contact me.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoy this.

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Milieu: Chapitre Deux

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_Néant._

My name meant nothing to me anymore.

Or, to be more specific, it meant so much, was so big of a Something to me, that it was impossible to grasp, impossible to think of, without cringing; without wanting to take a ride on a passing cloud and march up to St. Peters's Gates and bang on the doors, ordering _ma maman_ to come out and testify over the absolute_ idiotie_ she must have possessed to name her daughter after the maker-of-life.

I was appalled that after what had happened to me I had this reminder of what I had been.

And I also worshipped it.

In my more darker moments-and they frequented me often-it felt nice, comforting, to have this last piece of myself to hold onto. I couldn't ever meet my old friends again, my old neighbors in the village, my old groom, the old river by my old home, the old paths I used to walk-worn down by generations of treading feet. Everything was 'old.' Everything was out of my reach, metaphorically. But I could think of my name and remember a time when it fitted me.

I'm sure if I wanted to stay in contact with others I could. But like Frankenstein's creation, I would have been abhorred and feared. They would have tried to run me out of their villages with fire and holy crosses-and other apotropes-and eventually, if there was enough temptation, people would have died and the rumors of a new horror would have started up. Rumors of a daughter of _Dracul, _a being after her pater's black heart; a being so sick and vile that 30,000 impaled Saxons would seem like nothing compared to her reign of terror.

Like Elizabeth Báthory who bathed in the blood of 600 virgins, I would become _fable, légende._

I would never wish that kind of notoriety on anyone so I certainly didn't want it for myself.

When mass hysteria for our kind cropped up-as it always seems to do-I stayed as far away from the nucleus as I could.

Tales of peasants getting bitten and going on rampages during the Habsburg Monarchy-about eleven years after I had been changed-frightened me. How easily, we could lose control. How _easily, _our instincts could take over at the sight of a fresh wound on a human-or even the smell of blood somewhere; we didn't have to see it to be affected by it.

We could be animals if we let ourselves and obviously some of us-maybe the majority-did.

I don't necessarily look at myself as someone noble for not succumbing. I don't think it's noble to not kill when everyone else is. Or on that count to ascribe human virtues and traits to something that no longer is human-no longer can be human.

Why do people question Gods? Gods are not human. Gods do not need to feel modesty or regret. They are Gods. They are above us.

Still, I do not want to compare what I am to something god-like though I know some vampires do. I understand their point of view. It is very hard not to think you're the best when you so clearly are-when you're so much stronger, faster, smarter, more beautiful than every other human you've ever come in contact with or seen or ever will.

It's hard to not feel a little pride in what circumstance made you.

If you have to live forever and be cursed to desire blood, wouldn't you rather look attractive while you're at it? Wouldn't you rather feel desired than be ugly, be another of Dr. Frankenstein's creations?

Like Frankenstein's creation however, this loneliness, this masochistic preoccupation wears.

You begin to crave someone to understand you; a companion like yourself; someone no longer human whom you don't have to hide your true self from. Someone whom you can love and who will hopefully love you in return because you're both all the other has.

I hated myself for wanting someone to suffer with me.

I knew others like me were out there, but for a long time, I hated them too. _Ma famille_ was murdered by an 'other.' How was I to know that they weren't all the same? How was I to know that they weren't all murdering lunatics, absolutely devoid of compassion for those lesser than us? How was I to know that I wasn't the only one who _fought it?_

I wandered. I had to. It was one thing to abstain from choicer flesh by hiding out in forests but it was another thing completely to deplete those forests' supplies of beasts. Villagers easily became suspicious when there wasn't any game to hunt. Who was killing all the wildlife? What new animal do we have in our midst that would steal the food from our mouths? From the mouths of our _bébés?_

It pained me to leave, but I could never go back anyway. I no longer had a home. My home was now just a shell…soon, it would have a new family living in it. One not concerned with the tragedy of the previous owners. And the table my _papa _crashed against when he died could be repaired.

'Wouldn't you know it, but the man who lived here before had been a _charpentier? _Yes! There was another cottage, full of tools to make a hundred more tables!'

'_Magnifique!'_

'I have always thought I would make an excellent _charpentier.'_

Imagining the dialogue of some phantom _famille enfant_ just starting out in life burned me. I had to leave.

Oh, I hope to never revisit those days! When I had no one. No _maman_ to pester me or _papa_ to give me hugs. No _marié_ to protect and shield me from all of life's unpleasant happenings. I had to mature very quickly.

And let me make it clear by saying that I had never thought of myself as a woman-full-grown; not even when two of my friends were already married; not even when _garçons et jeune hommes_ had been following me around for years.

I still felt the child. Still the hoyden, the _garcon manqué, _the_ femme-enfant. _

Two years before my death, I had shot up like a beanstalk. Taller than _deux cadet frères a moi,_ taller than _un_ _âge__ frère_-who had not hit his growth spurt yet-, taller than _ma maman, _taller than all the girls my age in our village, my body had not grown in other ways. I had no bosom and no hips. I could never pass for _un adolescent_ however because of my face-it was still unbearably, heartbreakingly in some cases, feminine.

Two years later, my body had just begun to even out.

It is the second biggest irony of my existence that I became a vampire too early.

Two more years of being human-perhaps even one, who knows?-and I might have matured enough to get the guy.


End file.
